Writing the History of Telenovelas under Brazilian Military Rule (1964-1985): Censorship Reports Instead of Audiovisual Archives?

This article describes the problems of accessing audiovisual archives when trying to write the history of Brazilian telenovelas under the military rule in Brazil (1964-1985). It proposes the analysis of censorship reports on television products as a way to compensate for the lack of access to audiovisual material, using the Censor Archives as an extremely rich source that could help partially to recover the history of Brazilian television under military rule. At the same time, it raises important methodological questions which should be taken into account by researchers.